All Bihar medical colleges to have eye banks by Dec end: Nitish Kumar

Addressing a social event organised by Dadhichi Dehdan Samiti (DDS) on the occasion of International Organ Donation Day, the CM also appealed to people to donate their eyes and urged the DDS office-bearers to get the necessary form for eye donation filled up by him.TNN | August 14, 2017, 08:50 IST

PATNA: Chief minister (CM) Nitish Kumar on Sunday said eye banks would be set up in all the medical college hospitals of the state as well as at Patna-based Rajendra Nagar Super Specialty Eye Hospital by the end of December 2017 to facilitate and expedite eye donation campaign across the state.

Addressing a social event organised by Dadhichi Dehdan Samiti (DDS) on the occasion of International Organ Donation Day, the CM also appealed to people to donate their eyes and urged the DDS office-bearers to get the necessary form for eye donation filled up by him.

Lauding the works of DDS, the CM said the campaign to motivate people for organ donation is a very big social cause and he wholeheartedly supports it. He said all people should join this campaign.

Recounting the works being done by his government to promote organ donation in Bihar, the CM said Patna-based Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (IGIMS) has already been notified as an institution empowered to declare a person ‘brain dead’. The organs for donation can be retrieved from body only after a patient is declared brain dead.

The CM said the IGIMS was being developed in many areas of medical facilities. The facility of kidney transplantation has already been started at the institute, while liver transplantation would start by the end of this year, he said. Nitish said the new state government would work with vigour to improve healthcare system at government-run hospitals.

He said the health system was very deplorable in the state before formation of the first NDA government in 2005. “In a health survey conducted in January 2006, it came to notice of the state government that an average 39 patients were visiting a primary health centre (PHC) in a month. Then, we ensured free distribution of medicines at the PHCs and other government hospitals and strictly monitored attendance of doctors. A similar survey conducted in November 2006 revealed that the number of patients shot up to average 2,000 per PHCs per month. In 2017, the patients visiting a PHC per month has shot up to 11,000,” the CM said and hoped that new health minister Mangal Pandey (who was sitting on the dais) would work with similar vigour.

The CM said that the state government has planned to launch a special campaign against child marriage and dowry system from October 2. “The matter of eye donation and organ donation can also be shared with public with the state government’s campaign,” he said.

The CM lauded the works done by senior ophthalmologist Dr Subhash Prasad in the field of eye donation. Dr Prasad, in his address, recalled how the CM played a vital role in establishment of the state’s first eye bank at IGIMS.

Deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi, the chief patron of DDS, exhorted people to donate different organs of their body if they wanted to be remembered even after death. “Just like in game of cricket, one has the opportunity to play a second innings through eye and organ donation,” Modi said.